ZECCO - When Free Trades Can Cost You Your Sanity

I decided a few weeks ago to give ZECCO a test drive. "ZECCO - The Free Trading Community". Why give it a try? ZECCO claims "Because it’s time to get wise about money." It sounds great! We've come a long way as far as trading commissions go. Free? Now this I have to see.

Actually the trades are only free if you stay within specific restraints.

"At the heart of our market-busting change lies our promise of zero dollar trade commissions. That’s right. The price war is over. You won. You can make up to 10 trades in any one day up to a total of 40 trades a month at no cost, and after that you only have to pay a paltry $3.50 per stock trade. Option trades only cost $3.50 plus $.60 a contract."

But the commission structure has its competitors beat. But as far as I am concerned that is the only thing that makes ZECCO attractive, the prices.

Site navigation is slow and tedious. I want everything on one page, ZECCO has everything scattered in slow loading tabs. I can not find my total equity balance until the next day. This is inexcusable.

The past few weeks using ZECCO have been fraught with anger, frustration, and pure disgust and ZECCO was kind enough to give this to me for free too!

First of all ZECCO has been experiencing technical problems. The other day I could not see my open orders. That is right! If I placed an order I had no clue if it was accepted, what its status was, and worst of all I could not cancel or edit it! That is completely unacceptable in my opinion. When you trade stocks every second counts, especially if you trade penny stocks. I had to call up ZECCO each time I wanted to cancel or change an order. I was amazed that they allowed this to happen. At that moment I lost all faith in ZECCO.

A few mornings later I tried to place a pre-market trade. The time was 9:15AM. In prior instances the order was always queued, but this time it was rejected. "Rejected" I said as I looked at the status. On the bottom of the rejected message it said "Line with ECN down"!!!! That to me meant I was not able to trade stocks at that time. The market was due to open in minutes and my ability to trade the stocks in my ZECCO account was non-existent! I needed some orders in first thing or I risked losing money. I was pulling my hair out. At 9:27AM the trade finally went through.

Finally I feel like my trades are being manipulated. My orders sporadically show up on the LEVEL II's. I think ZECCO thinks that I don't have access to LEVEL II's, or maybe they think I am plain dumb. They are wrong on both counts.

On numerous occasions I put an order in to sell. It does not show up on the ask, but according to the current level II's I would be the low ask. Eventually I see trades going through at my ask (still not visible on LII's and the current ask is higher than the trades going through), I click on executions and none of my shares were sold. With other brokerages I put an order to sell in below the bid my order would fill at the current bid and below. This does not happen with ZECCO.

Let me illustrate how ZECCO is stealing my money.

Example: I put an order in to sell ZIPL at $.11 The current bid is $.12 . After I submit the order I see sells going through at $.12 - many of them with numbers that add up to my sell order. I assume I have been filled and check my executions but I am not filled. The bid drops to $.11 and now my trade goes through. What do I think happened? ZECCO stole the difference between $.11 and $.12.

This is all from my experience. I trade penny stocks so maybe ZECCO is only for the bigger markets. As far as I am concerned if I have to pay to get trades executed properly I will. If I have to pay to get a trading system that does not frequently fail I will. If I have to pay to get great customer service I will. If I have to pay to get orders filled without getting shafted I will. ZECCO is free but I would not even use them if they paid ME per trade. Forget it. You can't make money if your broker is taking your profits.

On ZECCO's about us page they say that they have "a dedication to a minimalist business model that cuts out the fat like those big, expensive TV commercials and wall-to-wall online advertising" and they "give people what they want and they will return; impress them enough and they will tell their friends about us, too. "

I am not returning or telling my friends. You can look for those expensive commercials to come when football season hits Week 4.

It was one shell of a week in the penny stock market

If any of you decided to take this week off, then you missed some memorable runs in the penny stock market. Toward the middle of the week many shells were getting volume in the hopes of capturing some of the euphoria from the start of the week, most notably those that were associated with Joseph Muese and Belmont Partners.

It all began on Monday morning - right out of the gates TDWV began a 1000% run in less than 10 minutes time. It opened at $.001 and quickly shot straight to a penny. "What a great run" you must be thinking. If you had been lucky enough to grab some cheap shares you surely would have sold at $.01 after turning a 1000% profit... right? Hopefully you didn't because the fun was just starting. At 10:20AM, less than an hour after the market opened, TDWV surpassed $.02 for a 2000% gain for the day. Now isn't a 2000% profit good enough?

Throughout the rest of the trading day TDWV continued an impressive run reaching a high of $.068 or a gain of 6800%, before closing the day at .049 up 4900% (It closed today at $.02 up 2000% for the week). TDWV set the stage for one shell of a week. POYS, THDS, AZTC, FCRZ, SHAR, AINI, ITSW and many other shell stocks saw some pretty significant gains.

The only difficult part with the shell game is liquidity. The volume is usually thin, the support is non-existent, and the last one out is holding a bag that no one wants to hold. Many of the shells that were pumped now find themselves at a lowewr price than before., or with shareholders willing to part at all costs.

The ironic part is that shell stocks are your only true long term play in the penny stock market. There is no company to dilute - so the price usualy remains pretty stable. If you somehow ended up standing when the music stopped don't panic. Someday you might be able to sell your shell for a price 6000% more than you paid for it.

Stocks To Watch Monday August 20, 2007

PSVI is another stock pick that has performed well so far. It was up 100% on Friday before falling back to close at $.004. We think it could hit a penny sometime this week. It still looks oversold.

MCCI is also looking to head higher this week after rising 100% recently as our stock pick. The support at $.001 is strong, it is just a matter of holding gains.

Other stocks to watch IPHE, TLTK, MNEI, SEVI, and DVFA.

DVFA is the new Diversified Acquisitions resulting from a 1-1200 reverse split of TQWI. Most reverse mergers eventual involve a reverse split so I don't think this was a surprise for TQWI shareholders. But I am sure they would have rather had a press release first before the reverse split. It will be interesting to see where this trades the next few days, especially after everyone gets their adjusted shares.

Lets all have a green day and check http://www.pennystockforums.net for news, discussions, and stock picks.

All you need is a few hundred dollars and a dream

We all trade penny stocks because they offer returns that are just not possible in the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX. If you look everyday through the highest % gainers on the big board you would be hard pressed to find a stock that gained over 30%. Then again you would also be hard pressed to find a stock that fell over 30% as well. That is the thrill of trading penny stocks. You can make or lose a lot of money in a short period of time.

As I write this article SMXT is gapping up in the pre-market. The ask is at $.58 - to think at this time yesterday you could have purchased SMXT for $.005 - yes half a penny a share and now you cannot buy a share for less than $.58! Show me a stock on the NASDAQ that has run 10,900% in one day! If you were lucky enough to buy and hold SMXT at $.01 yesterday your investment would be worth over $50,000 right now! That is purely amazing and that is why we trade penny stocks.

SMXT will be on watch for the time being. Someone is very happy right now and I am sure a lot of people are kicking themselves for not buying when they had the chance. Either way it validates our love for penny stocks. One day you lose 50% the next day your stock goes up 10,900% and then continues to run the next day.

Stocks on watch today for http://www.pennystockforums.net

MCCI
EFGO
NMKT
EYII
EPGL

Stocks In Play Today EPGL MCCI NMKT MOVI SIRI SSWC

EPGL had a very nice day on Friday. It did sell off but managed to test the resistance at $.0017 before falling back. Certainly this is a good sign for EPGL. Look for continued volume throughout the week for EPGL.

MCCI is our new forum stock pick. The pick is based purely on a bottom bounce. Head to http://www.pennystockforums.net for the full write up.

We've called NMKT a few times in the past and have been pretty successful in predicting when it will run. This is another one of those times where NMKT is poised to bounce off a new low. This is a great time to accumulate.

MOVI could also head higher soon. Keep it on your radar.

SSWC has a very small share count. It is trading near its all - time low. Keep an eye on this one too. It could be good for a 50%+ run soon.

EPGL SPVG TQWI EYII

It has been a fun week for the PennyStockForum. Our new Pick EYII was up 37% at one point on Wednesday and EPGL looks primed to finally run. Other picks we have our eyes on are SPVG which was up over 190% on Wednesday!!! It has a very small float and we think this has alot of room for higher ground! TQWI continues to have a tremendous amount of volume and will keep watching this one. Here is the updated chart on EPGL! Good luck all